L.A. mayor calls for sacrifice to get through bad times

HARBOR CITY - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa painted a grim picture of the state of the city Tuesday in his annual address, renewing a call for shared sacrifice and saying there was an urgent need for Angelenos to work together to get through the rough economic times.

Speaking to a crowd of 400 people at the BalqonElectric Truck Manufacturing Co., Villaraigosa said the financial crunch was throwing hundreds of thousands of city residents into unemployment lines and forcing many people to seek handouts and other aid for the first time in their lives.

He called on unions to make wage and benefit concessions or face up to 2,800 city layoffs.

"This is reason for urgency," Villaraigosa said. "A reason to come to the table with new ideas. To recognize there is not a moment to spare."

What is needed, he argued - as he did last week - is a sense of shared sacrifice where government workers will have to give back some to save the jobs of their co-workers while asking the public to pay more.

"The jobless rate simmering at 12 percent and rising. The mortgage crisis has now forced 21,000 of our families to box up their belongings and vacate their homes, many experiencing for the first time in their lives the humiliating pain - the frustration - that comes in having to put your hand out and rely on the help of strangers to survive."

And, as damaging as the recession has been to individuals, it has also hurt government.

He said the public is demanding more services and the money to pay for much of them has evaporated - fueling voter anger after a generation of partisan politics.

"Here in California it's the same thinking that gave us the two-thirds budget vote and term limits," he said. "Fundamentally, it's the politics of no. Of saying what we can't do. No to investment in the long-term. Not to what we can do together as parents and neighbors in communities, small towns and big cities across our state."

Much of his speech was devoted to making a plea to city workers to recognize the economic realities. He'll restate the message next week when he releases his city budget proposal, a spending plan that will depend on union concessions to trim a $530 million shortfall.

"I'll be the first to admit this budget relies on the willing partnership of our city workers," Villaraigosa said. "Hopefully, even the courageous leadership of their union leaders.

"I am not taking them on. I am asking them to show the same sense of cooperation that made us successful. That, in this time of need, we work together."

Even with the shortfall, he said the city should not panic.

Still, unless there are some concessions, the mayor said "the alternatives will be too painful to contemplate."

As many as 2,800 workers could be laid off unless there is a new agreement with unions to pay cuts and bypassing raises this year.

"I know these options aren't easy," Villaraigosa said. "But there are thousands of jobs at stake."

Pat McOsker, president of the Unified Firefighters of Los Angeles City, who are scheduled to begin negotiations this month, said his members are willing to work with the mayor and council.

"We recognize how difficult it is out there and want to do our part to save jobs," McOsker said.

Council President Eric Garcetti said the mayor laid down a line in the sand to deal with the city's financial problems.

"I think we all know there is no silver bullet," Garcetti said. "It will be up to all of us to deal with the problems. Our top priority is keeping communities safe. We need to strategically focus our resources."

The mayor said he would work with the City Council to develop a new public-private partnership to generate up to $1 billion to protect the city pension system.

While much of his speech was dire, Villaraigosa said the city also had to look to the future, working with the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce to create 16,500 new jobs for young people.

The city will work with the Community College District to create work centers to help students find jobs.

The city also will be developing programs to assist some 50,000 poor Angelenos with tax credits, affordable health care and other services.

In addition, he said the city will roll out a $30 million program to provide help for renters.

"With this strategy in place, we are sending the message that we will not leave our neighbors behind, no matter what," Villaraigosa said.

While much of the effort during his first term was on luring big construction, Villaraigosa said his business team is now turning its attention to small business growth, creating an Office of Small, Local and Disadvantaged Businesses.

As part of that, the city has set up a $15 million loan program to make more credit available and the mayor said he hoped it would receive another $15 million at one point.

At the same time the mayor said he has not given up on solar energy, despite the defeat in March of the Measure B solar initiative.

"We are aggressively growing the industries of the future here," Villaraigosa said, pushing his plan for a Clean Tech Corridor running from the Harbor to downtown Los Angeles. The corridor will host businesses tied to green technologies.

Villaraigosa also took note of the success the city has had with the continuing reduction in crime. "In the end we know that responding to our current crisis requires that we forsake short-term politics for long-term investments," he said.

"We can't lose sight of our core values - recognizing that the long-term building blocks of economic growth and vitality have always been public safety, public education and public transportation," Villaraigosa said.

Villaraigosa said despite the hard times, he will not abandon his long-held goal of hiring 1,000 new police officers, a milestone the city is close to achieving.

"I respect the critics who say we can't afford it, but frankly, they have it backwards," he said. "We cannot break the compact we made with the public on police hiring. An investment that grows only more urgent in a struggling economy."

The mayor also said he will continue his efforts to reform the Los Angeles Unified School District. He has challenged his allies in United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing LAUSD teachers, to also make concessions to save jobs.

Through a partnership agreement with the district, the mayor has his own cluster of schools directly under his authority. He said he has raised more than $4 million to be used over the next three years to help the LAUSD reform effort.

He said part of that reform should look at allowing the lowest performing schools to become charter schools to try to turn them around - an effort previously opposed by UTLA.